


Nothing Out of the Ordinary

by Sampika



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Pain, Post-Civil War (Marvel), Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-08 04:28:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11638917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sampika/pseuds/Sampika
Summary: Physical trauma leaves scars. But scars never seem to heal.





	Nothing Out of the Ordinary

Tony winced as he lowered himself into a sofa in the Avengers facility common room. Pain rippled across his chest, a phantom of the arc reactor’s damage burning where the hole in his chest used to be. Now it was just scar tissue and a constant ache.

“You okay?” Rhodey asked. The voice came as a surprise, Tony hadn't noticed his friend was in the room.

Stark sighed inwardly - he wouldn't risk actually sighing, that would hurt too much - of course Rhodey would take notice. Just like he had noticed the palladium poisoning several years ago. And just as before, Tony would come up with an excuse. Granted, the excuse for the palladium wasn't exactly believable, but it wasn't like telling the truth would have helped him any more. It would have only brought about pity and worry and other emotions. Emotions were certainly not his strong point, just ask Pepper.

Telling the truth now would do nothing for him, just like the last time. There wasn't anything that could be done, Stark knew that. Nothing could be done to ease the pain constantly tormenting his chest, his lungs, his heart. 

Over time, Tony had learned to live with it. He had accepted that all the money and medical technology in the world just couldn't fix some things. His chest had taken quite a beating over the years. The explosion and shrapnel in Afghanistan, and immediately following that, Yinsen had performed a mediocre surgery on his chest and hooked him up to a car battery like some kind machine in order to save his life.

When he had escaped that cave, one of the first things he did after the press conference was to do surgery on himself to make the reactor walls more stable than what he had built for himself in the cave with nothing but scraps. But to keep the arc reactor, lung tissue and parts of his ribcage had to be sacrificed. Something he hadn't thought about very much at the time, but then, he had always thought he would be young forever, that he would be energetic and not feel his bones creak and his muscles ache as time wore on. The young always do. He had been naive, but now here he was, the added effects of his age turning against him and making the pain worse.

With a third surgery to remove the reactor and the rest of the shrapnel, his damaged chest was put under even more strain. And then there was what the press had dubbed the “Civil War” of the Avengers. Tony’s armor had already all but failed when Steve brought his shield down on the arc reactor in the suit, on his chest. The armor couldn’t protect him from all of the destruction that attack had done. The dull aches he had barely felt before turned into stabs of agony with every inhale, every exhale. He couldn't help but resent Rogers just a bit more for that, but he did have to admit that it was his fault that Steve didn't know about the permanent damage he was helping contribute to.

The only people he ever told about the pain were Pepper and Happy; Pepper because he promised not to keep secrets from her anymore, and Happy because he needed somebody to get his pain medications for him. And that was how he went on with his life - he would wake up in the morning, chest always aching, and down a couple of pills with coffee or water and then he would go on with his day as though it never happened. 

The meds would wear off in the late afternoon, so he would take two more and swallow them down with some scotch or bourbon or whiskey or whatever alcohol he had on hand. Tony knew it wasn't healthy, that the alcohol was just poison to his degrading body, but he couldn't bring himself to care. The alcohol helped to numb the pain when the pills wore off, and on the particularly bad nights, he would drink until he knocked himself out cold. That didn't happen often, but it happened more than he cared to admit. 

Stark lived like that for years, and for the most part, he didn't have to live with the brunt of the pain for more than a few hours a day. But eventually, his body started getting used to the pills. They wore off quicker each day. They did less to stop the pain. Eventually they hardly had any effect at all. And even when Stark did take the meds, they never completely rid him of the pain. There was always a rhythmic throbbing settled deep in his chest. Each breath hurt, but he kept breathing because he had to. The pain became something he lived with constantly, an omnipresent force that was as much a part of him as his suits nowadays. It was ordinary.

He hadn't ever told any of the other Avengers. Why would they need to know? Tony practically turned to mush when faced with having to have any kind of heartfelt talk, and opening up to any of them was a repulsive idea. 

In his opinion, he had done an amazing job of keeping his pain to himself. He had learned how to hide his winces and keep his face cool under any circumstance. He schooled himself into neutrality with every breath he took, and had done so for so long that it was second nature. 

The only time he ever let the pain show was when he was alone. Until now, that is.

He wasn't sure how it happened, really. He thought the common room was empty. He was tired. He didn't have FRIDAY do a scan to see who was still in the building and who wasn't. The compound had been quite empty since the fight against Steve, what with half the team labeled as war criminals and hiding God knows where, and the other half never really around anymore. The Avengers had fallen apart that day, and the compound always felt more like a ghost town than anything else. Tony just wasn't expecting Rhodey to be there, especially since he still had difficulty walking on his own with the exo-legs.

But somebody was always bound to notice his pain at some point, and he was always bound to shrug it off because he knew that they couldn’t help.

“Tony?” Rhodey asked again when Stark didn't answer, concern on his face. Deja vu. 

“I'm fine,” he lied through gritted teeth, plastering a false smile on his face. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

**Author's Note:**

> So I recently I rewatched Captain America: Civil War and I went to the theaters to see Homecoming twice, and now I've fallen to the depths of the MCU fandom, haha. This is my first fic for the fandom, so I hope I got Tony's characterization right. 
> 
> This was inspired by a fic I read (but I've read so many in the past few hours I don't remember which one it was ;u;) that detailed how Cap slamming his shield into Stark's chest probably hurt like hell, and then I got to thinking about all the damage his chest has gone through since the beginning, and tada! This was born.


End file.
